tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Aug 09 12:05:42 2001

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Re: Klingon WOTD: yergho (n)



: Klingon word:   yergho
: Part of Speech: noun
: Definition:     city wall
: 
: Additional Notes:
: From Okrand, startrek.klingon, 12/7/98.  From {yer} + {gho}.

Specifically, a {yergho} is "the wall around a walled city", derived from the
nouns {yer} "domain, holdings, territory" and {gho} "circle, hoop".  Cf. also
the verb {DoQ} "claim (territory)".


For those interested, other architectural - *{qachQeD}? - terms from that same
st.klingon post include:

{chevwI' tlhoy'} "territorial wall".  This is an external, free-standing wall
like the Berlin Wall, Hadrian's Wall in Britain, the Great Wall of China, etc. 
In Klingon slang this is also known as a {pIn tlhoy'}.

{reD} "exterior wall"

{pa' reD} "interior face of exterior wall"

{tlhoy'} "wall, interior wall, interior face of exterior wall"

{beb} "roof"

{tlhoy' SaS} "ceiling/floor between stories" (lit. "horizontal wall")

{pa' beb} "ceiling" (lit. "room's roof")

Okrand explained the difference between {pa' beb} and {rav'eq} "ceiling" in an
article in HolQed 8.3:

  "There are two special terms for the top of a room, or 'ceiling.'
   {rav'eq} refers to the ceiling of any room (though, more narrowly,
   it refers to the ceiling of a room that has a room above it, as
   in a multistory structure); {pa' beb} refers specifically to the
   ceiling of a room which is on the top (or only) story of a structure.
   It is possible to use {'aqroS} to refer to a ceiling, through the
   other two terms are more common."

I'm guessing that {tlhoy' SaS} may be a more general term, referring to the
slab separating two stories in a building.  {rav} "floor" and {rav'eq}
"ceiling" seem to refer to the two faces of this slab, depending on whether
you're looking at it from the room above or the room below.  {pa' beb} is a
specific type of {rav'eq}, while {beb} by itself refers to the same
architectural element viewed from outside the building.



-- 
Voragh                       
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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